Year and a Day: Day 1

I am beginning these Year and a Day lessons and exercises on November 1st, the day after Samhain also called The Witches' New Year.

Today is All Saints Day or Hallowmas, a day to celebrate the Ancestors and those who have carved the path of the Craft before us.

Connecting to the Earth

Timothy Roderick in his book on a Year and a Day study writes, " Spirituality has its birthplace right here - in the dirt, in the soil, in the struggles and triumphs of everyday life. It emerged from human laughter and fear. It was something that pervaded one's eating, sleeping, eliminating, and reproducing. It governed family and community life, the coming of age, marriages, births, and deaths. Spirituality had little to do with lofty philosophical notions - the things that emerge from thinking - it centered on hard facts of life. the soft facts of life must have played their part too. Love, tenderness, and compassion are universal human emotions that have long quickened the heart and informed the spirit."

Sally Griffin writes in Wiccan Wisdomkeepers, "At the dawn of the new millennium, many spiritual traditions think that the twenty-first century will be a Golden Age, with tremendous shifts of consciousness on a universal scale. The spiritual knowledge of older religions is being sought as an answer to the overwhelming pace of modern life...Although Wicca is the modern branch of a mucholder nature religion, Wide Craft or Witchcraft, it offers some ancient insights from Western sources...The resurgence in interest in the land as teacher has moved into focus for those interested in British Pagan history."

Wicca and Witchcraft is about connecting to the Earth, to Nature, to our own Spirit, to the Divine in whatever name or form we give Them.
It is not the path of the faint of heart nor for those who disdain or fear nature.
It is the path of harmony with all that is around us and in us.
You will have to ask yourself, can you handle rain and sleet, boiling heat or high winds? Can you dance in a rainstorm and give praise to thunder and lightning? Can you go barefoot in fields of grass, meditate under a tree, appreciate the beauty of insects?
If not...there are of course ways around this, but it would make bringing yourself into harmony with nature harder.

(You should of course not expose yourself to certain climates or do certain activities if your health will be at risk. This will not make you any less of a Witch, instead, it will build on your ability to compromise and find new ways of doing things.)

Exercise 1

These exercises will aid in both bringing yourself into harmony and balance but also in building your psychic and spiritual development.
Magical ability is like a muscle that must first be developed then grows stronger with use.
It is best to practice these exercises every day or as often as your schedule allows.
Some witches will practice on an empty stomach, much as you would exercise on an empty stomach. It is also good to drink plenty of water.
Wear loose, comfortable clothes, unless you feel better practicing in no clothes at all - when appropriate.

If the weather permits, go outside. Sit somewhere in a natural setting such as under a tree, in a quiet park, down at the beach. Even your own back yard or a patch of grass near your work place will do.
If you can bear the chill, take off your shoes so that your feet have connection with the earth.

Find a comfortable position sitting or lying down. As you sit, breath deeply into your stomach. Relax and let your body become connected with the earth beneath you.
Now Visualize or Imagine you have roots extending from the base of your spine into the earth. These roots run deep, as deep as you can, connecting you to the earth. Breath and feel your connection.
Now, bring your awareness up from the roots to your head and visualize a bright white light pouring down from above. The light passes through your whole body slowly, down from your head to your the base of your spine to your feet then down the roots you created.
Release all tension as the light passes through. Release all anxieties and stress. Release all these things with the white light and let it flow out of you. When the last of it is gone, let the light stop coming into your and let the last of it flow out of you into the earth.

This exercise is one you can do to release excess or non-beneficial energy any time and is one you should use (indoors or outside) before and after you do any magical working so that you do not bring outside energies into your circle or work and so that you do not carry excess energy out from your work.

By creating those roots into the earth, and also by sitting or standing barefoot on the earth, you become Grounded. Grounding is especially good in times of jittery nerves, when you cannot focus, or even when you are not feeling well.

Bibliography
Llewellyn's Magical Almanac
Wicca: A Year and a Day by Timothy Roderick
Witch School First Degree by Rev. Don Lewis-Highcorrell